{"id":12908,"date":"2016-12-23T23:04:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-23T23:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/?p=12908"},"modified":"2016-12-23T23:12:07","modified_gmt":"2016-12-23T23:12:07","slug":"christ-climbed-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/featured\/christ-climbed-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Christ Climbed Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christ Climbed Down<\/span>
\n Christ climbed down<\/span>
\n from His bare Tree<\/span>
\n this year<\/span>
\n and ran away to where<\/span>
\n there were no rootless Christmas trees<\/span>
\n hung with candycanes and breakable stars<\/span><\/p>\n

Christ climbed down<\/span>
\n from His bare Tree<\/span>
\n this Year<\/span>
\n and ran away to where<\/span>
\n there were no gilded Christmas trees<\/span>
\n and no tinsel Christmas trees<\/span>
\n and no tinfoil Christmas trees<\/span>
\n and no pink plastic Christmas trees<\/span>
\n and no gold Christmas trees<\/span>
\n and no black Christmas trees<\/span>
\n and no powderblue Christmas trees<\/span>
\n hung with electric candles<\/span>
\n and encircled by thin electric trains<\/span>
\n and clever cornball relatives<\/span><\/p>\n

Christ climbed down<\/span>
\n from His bare Tree<\/span>
\n this year<\/span>
\n and ran away to where<\/span>
\n no intrepid Bible salesmen<\/span>
\n covered the territory<\/span>
\n in two-tone cadillacs<\/span>
\n and where no Sears Roebuck creches<\/span>
\n complete with plastic babe in manger<\/span>
\n arrived by parcel post<\/span>
\n the babe by special delivery<\/span>
\n and where no televised Wise Men<\/span>
\n praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey<\/span><\/p>\n

Christ climbed down<\/span>
\n from His bare Tree<\/span>
\n this year<\/span>
\n and ran away to where<\/span>
\n no fat handshaking stranger<\/span>
\n in a red flannel suit<\/span>
\n and a fake white beard<\/span>
\n went around passing himself off<\/span>
\n as some sort of North Pole saint<\/span>
\n crossing the desert to Bethlehem<\/span>
\n Pennsylvania<\/span>
\n in a Volkswagon sled<\/span>
\n drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer<\/span>
\n with German names<\/span>
\n and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts<\/span>
\n from Saks Fifth Avenue<\/span>
\n for everybody\u2019s imagined Christ child<\/span><\/p>\n

Christ climbed down<\/span>
\n from His bare Tree<\/span>
\n this year<\/span>
\n and ran away to where<\/span>
\n no Bing Crosby carolers<\/span>
\n groaned of a tight Christmas<\/span>
\n and where no Radio City angels<\/span>
\n iceskated wingless<\/span>
\n thru a winter wonderland<\/span>
\n into a jinglebell heaven<\/span>
\n daily at 8:30<\/span>
\n with Midnight Mass matinees<\/span><\/p>\n

Christ climbed down<\/span>
\n from His bare Tree<\/span>
\n this year<\/span>
\n and softly stole away into<\/span>
\n some anonymous Mary\u2019s womb again<\/span>
\n where in the darkest night<\/span>
\n of everybody\u2019s anonymous soul<\/span>
\n He awaits again<\/span>
\n an unimaginable<\/span>
\n and impossibly<\/span>
\n Immaculate Reconception<\/span>
\n the very craziest<\/span>
\n of Second Comings<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

– Lawrence Ferlinghetti<\/p>\n

A Coney Island of the Mind<\/p>\n

\n

It has been said that sometimes God will offend the mind to reveal the heart, and I appreciate Ferlinghetti’s poem that leaves no sacred cow untipped. It serves to jar us from our Saccharin finery that serves as cultural graffiti obstructing the ruthless commonness of the Christ. The Christ pulls the pin on much of our pious ideas of holiness, and our projected sterility and prissy fragility. In doing so, it releases Christ into the mundane of real life and awakening us to the wonder of God in us in Christ.<\/p>\n

Christ relieves us of the heavy burden of not looking, ignoring or oblivious slumber. He free us to discover afresh, daily, the Christ-filled moment of every moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christ Climbed Down Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this year and ran away to where there were no rootless Christmas trees hung with candycanes and breakable stars Christ climbed down from His bare Tree this Year and ran away to where there were no gilded Christmas trees and no tinsel Christmas trees and…","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12910,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[646,573,167,172,179,286],"class_list":["post-12908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-christian-mysticism","tag-christmas","tag-everyday-spirituality","tag-experiencing-god","tag-faith-in-real-life","tag-incarnation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iamsignificant.ca\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}